Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 darkwarlock Jul 09, 2013 23:37:04	The dragon encounter in this adventure has always bugged me. Eberron's dragons, though admitting such reckless activity on occasion, beg for more complicated treatment. Has anyone done anything interesting with the backstory for the dragon's attack in their game? Is it a Chamber agent interested in the Ashen Crown because it's tied to the prophecy in some way? Is it actively working against the interests of the Chamber, or Darguun, or Breland? My game, which had been on hiatus for quite some time, has begun again and is just about to engage this encounter, and I'd like to develop it into something much more than just a simple and straightforward combat, even if the details only come to light for the PCs after the event itself. Though, of course, I would also like very much to spice up the encounter in some way, perhaps cryptic dialogue with or behavior by the dragon itself. Any and all ideas are welcome!
#2 darkwarlock Jul 30, 2013 12:12:24	I've decided that the dragon encounter as it stands just won't work for me: without being properly embedded in the adventure arc, it will bring the adventurers too far off track. Plus, I want encounters with dragons to be all-consuming for the heroes, not tangential bumps in the road. Thus, I've decided to replace the (as written) level 4 solo dragon with a level 6 solo tembo (from the Dark Sun Creature Catalog), which should represent a more substantial challenge for my PCs, who will be 5th level (and rested) at the time of the encounter.  Of course, a tembo is not a flying creature, so my thoughts are that it was smuggled aboard in a crate with some cargo by an opposing faction in Graywall. It's likely that one of the crew had to be bribed for this to have worked properly, and perhaps said crew member's corpse will subsequently be found stowed below deck after the encounter, the casualty of some fell magic attempting to tie up loose ends. Or is this last even necessary since Demise, etc. seem to thrive on gloating at the heroes at every opportunity? Anyone care to chime in with opinions about how to make any of this work best?
#3 AvonRekaes Jul 30, 2013 14:50:42	You sound like you have a pretty solid idea there. A smuggled terror-beast seems a lot more... pulpy and fitting for Eberron than a random rogue dragon. The rogue dragon in this adventure bothered me too. The idea of rogue dragons always seemed like a handwave for DMs that didn't want to deal with the massive importance of dragons in the setting. It's like a safety net to make sure as many DMs as possible would be comfortable running in Eberron, and while that has merit, it's not something I was happy to see highlighted in Eberron's flagship 4e adventure.
#4 darkwarlock Jul 30, 2013 15:08:34	Thanks, Avon; I think this will work ... and feel ... better. Do you (or anyone else, for that matter) feel that someone other than Demise might be better suited as the origin of this attack? Again, I'm trying to play to the adventure and setting's complexity and layered motivations as best I can.
#5 AvonRekaes Jul 30, 2013 15:27:14	Demise makes a good fit. Perhaps the "bribed" crewmember was actually an Emerald Claw plant, and after the combat there's a little tiny mystery-adventure to figure out who it was before they do something more drastic, like crash the airship. Yeah, this sure feels more Eberron-y than the given encounter.
#6 adunn561 Aug 19, 2013 13:56:18	I know what you all mean, that encounter was spectacularly weird (unless you want to make the encounter more humorous, sort of a comedy relief moment after the previous drama) Honestly I actually just decided to skip the dragon because of how little sense it made. In fact I turned it's absense into a plot point by having it killed offscreen to foreshadow a major villain that I decided to have appear later on.